Melting snow above lines.

[eastman03]

Hey guys, this is only my second winter with this property. I didn't install the boiler. It's an empyre 250, about a 100 foot run to where it enters the house. I seem to get a lot of melt slowly on the ground above the water lines. Is this a major issue? Or is this a common thing to happen.  I don't like it, I feel like if there is enough warmth to keep snow off there, I'm losing heat. Possibly bad insulation in pipe, or poor burial depth. Just wondering if this is common, or if there is a common solution that doesn't require digging it all up. As you can see I had intent of covering the trench in bales, but they ended up being a kids fort.
Can't seem to add a pic, will attach later.

[hedgerow]

Welcome to the forum eastman03
My lines are 450 feet from my Garn barn to my house. I spray foam my lines when I installed them nine coming up on 10 years ago. I have never had any sign of snow melt. Any time you can see snow melt you are losing a lot of heat into the earth. You will have to decide if you can live with burning more wood or want to spend the money to replace the lines. 

[47sawdust]

Hay bales won't work well.The ground will continue to suck heat from your pipes.I would expose the lines and either replace them or do a super insulation job.Minimum 2'' rigid under pipes,then professionally spray foam the sides and top.

[petefrom bearswamp]

My old owb, a Taylor was 110 ft. run to the house
consequently I lost 9 degrees of water temp from the boiler jacket.
The outfit I bought the unit from installed the lines.
Snow melted over the lines for the 3 winters I used it.
Then burned fuel oil for the next 7 years, now have an older classic with a 25 ft run to the house.
Still have some line loss, about 3 degrees but I can live with that,
Once the snow gets over a few inches I dont notice any melting but it is there.
Hedgerow have you measured your line loss?

[hedgerow]

petefrom bearswamp
I haven't measured the heat loss on my lines since I first installed the system. It was very little back then and I never seem to have a problem with heat loss. 

[eastman03]

Yea, the bales would not have done much, hopefully save a bit of heat and keep the deer off, and the snow on for some insulation.  I fear I will have to dig up the pipes and see what I'm dealing with.  Not what I was hoping to do! But, I have about a 10-15 degree heat loss between boiler and house.  For our cold Manitoba winters, that heat loss probably means a lot of extra wood.
Thanks guys

[r.man]

A friend just had a set of foamed pex lines installed professionally two falls ago. You can easily track his in the snow. 10 to 15 degrees loss seems excessive for a modern set up. Might they be in the water table? I think mine were under 3 degrees total loss, 60 feet underground, uninsulated but 4 feet deep in good sand.

[47sawdust]

In that picture....is the swale the heat lines.If so,lay 2 or 3 inches of hi-density foam down and cover to bring the depression up to or slightly above grade.Wet hay has no insulation value.
In Sweden a lot of shallow ,frost protected foundations are built using foam to protect the foundation.I've used the same technique here in Vermont.

[eastman03]

47sawdust, that 'swale' is actually the ground level, it is flat, we have several feet of snow! haha So i'm standing beside my wood boiler looking towards the house obviously, so you can see just how much the snow has gone down on down of the lines! That's also why the deer love that area in the dead of winter, fresh grass.  I'll have to dig some of it up and see what's going on.  Thanks guys.
I don't think it's in the water table, its pretty dry there.

[47sawdust]

Wow,that is a real heat sink.
Good luck

[barbender]

I installed my lines inside insulated 4" PVC. I think it has 1 1/2" of foam on the outside of the pipe. I've never seen any trace of my lines in the snow.  I'venever measure the actual heat loss from stove to house, but I doubt it would be much.

[chevytaHOE5674]

My lines are foam insulated inside a 6" piece of drain tile buried 7 foot deep, I've never had any melting and only have a couple of degrees loss from the stove to the house.

[doctorb]

My lines are 1 1/4" pex, 3+ feet down.  I never see the kind of melt depicted in those photos.  I do note, however, as the snow is finally melting away and the grass starts to show through (like a day before it's all gone), that the ground just above my lines melts just a wee bit faster.  I can sometimes see a little green path to the shed when there's <1/4' of snow everywhere else.  I lose about 6 degrees from the OWB to my basement, I think.  I have a 300' run of pex.  

So I know I am losing some heat.  In fact, all of us are losing some heat.  I have always though it was just the price of doing business.

[thecfarm]

I have a short run,mine looks the same way. I want to build a greenhouse over the lines and capture some of the heat loss. Kinda like around my basement. Snow melts away from my house too. My lines are only 18 inches deep too. But at least when the power goes out,I know my lines are warm. :D  I have ones of those guns to check the temp. Never have,because I am nice and warm. But would be good to know.

[Don P]

I imagine its one of those self feeding problems, when it is melting snow the soil is wetted making it that much worse an insulator.

[eastman03]

Thanks for the responses guys, this summer ill do a test dig and see what I'm dealing with as far as depth and insulation, then I'll go from there.

[Gary_C]

The first winter I had my Central Boiler I had to leave the line laying on top of the ground because the ground was already frozen by the time we got it installed. All through that winter there was no sign of snow melting on that exposed line. However that insulated double line was the CB Pex which at that time cost over $13 per foot.
My son later installed his outdoor wood stove and installed a line that cost about half that much and he could see snow melt and used a lot more wood every winter.
It's the old pay me now or pay me later story. There is just no substitute for a good well insulated line.

[gspren]

  I thought of this thread yesterday while going down my driveway. There is a 30" high pressure natural gas pipe line crossing my farm and driveway, on the lower side where the ground is saturated the snow is melting about 15' wide while on the high ground that is better drained there is no sign of melting, both sides are corn stubble. I saw the line installed about 10 years ago and it's 6-8 ft deep. No melting above my OWB lines.

[MNBobcat]

One of the stupidest things I see people do is put in a wood boiler and then go cheap on the pex lines connecting the boiler to the house.  Those lines need to be super insulated.  If not, you will pay through the nose by having to cut a lot more firewood due to the heat loss in the lines.

Like others have said, this summer dig down and find out what you have.  If need be, replace the lines with lines that are properly insulated.

[Roscoe294]

Don't waste your time digging up the bad water lines. You cant fix them. Buy the good stuff and bury it right over top of the bad ones or next to them if the old ones aren't buried deep enough.

[petefrom bearswamp]

My lines are the high priced 6" foam filled ones.
Was a bear getting them straight when I installed.
I even tried holding them straight tied to a tree with my Farmi winch for a couple of days with little success.